The Last Avengers Story #2

History

Peter David originally drafted the story in 1986, but editorial resistance shelved it: his editors pushed for a more action-forward plot while David wanted a character-driven meditation on aging heroes and institutional decay. The script sat dormant for nearly a decade until Marvel's brief 1995–1996 Alterniverse initiative — a darker, prestige-format offshoot of the long-running 'What If?' line — gave David the latitude to publish the story on his own terms, albeit with a new artist. Ariel Olivetti, then still an emerging Argentine talent, painted the entire two-issue run — pencils, inks, and colors — giving the series a unified visual voice that distinguished it from the standard Marvel house style of the era. Editor Marc McLaurin oversaw the project under editor-in-chief Carl Potts.

Trivia · 9 facts

• Written by Peter David and fully painted (pencils, inks, colors) by Ariel Olivetti; lettered by Jim Novak; edited by Marc McLaurin under EIC Carl Potts.
• Published December 1995 (cover date) / October 1995 (on-sale) as issue #2 of a two-part prestige-format miniseries under the Marvel Alterniverse imprint.
• The Alterniverse was Marvel's brief 1995–1996 rebranding of its 'What If?' alternate-universe line, grouping darker standalone works such as 'Ruins' and 'Punisher Kills the Marvel Universe' under a single banner.
• The story's original script dates to 1986 — nearly a decade before publication — when editorial disagreements over tone caused it to be shelved.
• Issue #2 features the deaths of Hank Pym, She-Hulk (Jessie Wingfoot), and Cannonball in the climactic battle; the Wasp kills Kang, and the Vision sacrifices himself to destroy Ultron-59, ending the conflict.
• Billy and Tommy Maximoff — alternate-universe sons of Vision and the Scarlet Witch — appear throughout: Billy as a villain adopting the Grim Reaper mantle, Tommy as a sorcerer trained by Doctor Strange; both predate the mainstream Wiccan and Speed (Young Avengers, 2005–2006) by roughly a decade.
• Captain America is revealed in this issue to be alive, hidden in a bunker and having watched the entire battle without intervening — a pointed narrative commentary on legacy and abdication.
• The two issues were collected in a 1996 trade paperback, then reprinted in the 2008 hardcover 'Avengers: First to Last' and again in 'The Last Avengers Story: Marvel Tales' #1 (February 2022), confirming lasting editorial interest in the story.
• The physical issue features squarebound prestige binding with an acetate cover overlaying Olivetti's painted cover — a production format common to the Alterniverse line — and runs 56 pages with no interior advertisements.

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